Increments
by a red burn
Summary: He often wonders just how much impossible really is impossible. JJReid.


Title: Increments.  
Author: Andréa.  
Summary: He often wonders just how much impossible really is impossible.  
Disclaimer: They belong to those who never let our pairings have sex.  
A/N: Thanks Sarah for beta-reading this for me.

-

He often wonders just how much impossible really is impossible.

He stares at her focused face, the way she pushes a strand of blond hair behind her ear, her eyes skimming back and forth, lips pursed together in a silent read. Eventually she brings a delicate hand under her chin, gently supporting her head. If he tries hard enough, he can feel the scent of her spicy perfume. Sometimes he swears the scent follows him home.

He feels it's so cliché as the thought bounces around in his brain, but the light shining in through the window next to her illuminates just the right places, making her glow more than she usually does. Making her hair lighter, prettier, her pale skin achieve a soft hue of tan on her cheeks.

With no warning she looks up and he's momentarily taken aback. She caught him staring. Instead of glaring she pushes the short strand of hair back behind her ear and smiles at him before resuming her task of finding useful information in the file in her hands.

There is a knot that forms in his chest that seems to drop straight to his stomach and the blood seems to pump faster in his veins. He has the image of her smile burned in his brain to play with during sleepless nights that are undesirably common.

He stares at her and wonders if this impossible can be overcome.

-

One sugar, cream and one quarter of milk. This little bit of information is tucked inside his brain and more often than not he catches himself playing with it whenever he sees her grabbing some coffee. When she's cranky she adds three sugars, no cream and even less milk. When she's particularly happy she adds a lot of cream and lets it swirl atop the black liquid. It's a rarity when he gets to see it though, because the Unit's coffee isn't exactly good and most time there's only coffee and sugar in the kitchen area.

Once he made a quick stop at the Starbucks on the way to work. When she arrived, there was a warm one sugar, cream and one quarter milk coffee mischievously sitting on her desk.

She spent half the day inquiring subtly around to find out who had given her a good mood for the rest of the day.

As the sky fades to black and they're all ready to go home in an unusual calm day, he believes whoever gifted her is still unknown to her, until she stops him just before he gets out of the building and thanks for the coffee. His brain tunes her out when she gives him her radiant smile and says it was a nice surprise.

There's another image that is tucked away along with all the expressions he's managed to memorize from her.

-

He chews on his pen while his mind gets lost somewhere between work and the appreciation of her sight. She's chatting with Garcia about some matter or another, one hand to her hip and the other waving around animatedly. As he watches he wonders what could have made her so cheerful today.

Her eyes leave Garcia's as she glances in his direction and winks at him when she catches him staring. Again. It's becoming a habit. Garcia follows her look and smiles at him enigmatically.

He feels his cheeks burning up and hopes they don't look as red as he feels they are. Looking down, he tries to finish his report without any further embarrassment.

He's sure Morgan will be commenting about it before he can blink twice.

-

Comfortably positioned on a seat in the back of the plane, she ignores the brunette talking beside her, her eyes shifting from the files in her hands to the genius playing chess with Gideon. She knows he's going to look up any moment. It's become a habit. Every other minute he throws a look her away thinking she doesn't notice before he has to focus on the board again and make his move.

She can feel his eyes every time.

She doesn't know exactly when it changed, when she started to notice, but he'd glance at her as often as not, during conferences, case debates, file searching, any moment he's around. She doesn't know if it's always been like this and only lately she started to feel it, or if it's a new occurrence.

She brings her eyes to the chess game and sure enough he's staring at her. She smiles openly, her eyes wrinkling just a little bit around the corners, the bit of her teeth barely visible under her lips. He looks away as his cheeks become a cute shade of pink for being caught staring.

She loves to do that because it makes him look adorably embarrassed. The fluttering in her chest ignores the small voice in the back of her head saying she's playing with fire.

-

He's finishing a report when she saunters to his desk, bag in one hand, coat in the other, and a smile on her lips. She asks if he'd like to accompany her on a quick lunch, and as the question rolls off her tongue, he's already ready to go.

He grimaces inwardly, mentally kicking himself for seeming so eager. He appreciates her company; in fact, he enjoys it more than he probably should, but it's something that is unspoken and forbidden. Socializing with JJ outside the hems of work somehow seems to be breaking some kind of rule, so wrong.

Moving her coat to hang between the straps of her bag, she holds out her free hand as he approaches and links her arm through his. There's a flutter in his belly and his brain yells at him to pull away while his heart swells and demands his body to get closer.

There's a guilt feeling just behind his eyes as he forces himself not to marvel in her warmth.

It's his guilty pleasure.

-

Lila came to town.

He's sitting at his desk one day, playing 'who can stare without being caught' longer with JJ when the TV star sashays into the bullpen looking for one Spencer Reid. He immediately breaks the game and stands to meet her with a warm yet awkward embrace. He learns she decided to stop by on her two weeks break for a couple of days and see how her hero is.

A couple of days of which they spent together thanks to light schedule they are having lately.

He never notices the change in JJ's demeanor and when Lila eventually leaves, everyone wants to know. He suddenly becomes popular amongst his teammates.

Only later he realizes the smiles have stopped when his stare is met with hard avoidance.

He misses the hurt in her eyes. She misses the confusion in his.

-

One night as he's getting ready to leave, his mind changes gears without his permission and before he can realize what's going on, he's standing in front of JJ's lit office, his heart beating faster than he believes is healthy.

Still, he needs to know.

He knocks on the open door and her attention switches to him. She smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Once she's given him permission to enter, he does just that, stepping carefully over the threshold, feeling as if he's invading some kind of personal space.

He asks if she's mad and she says no. The way her eyes shift from his form and she doesn't smile him off tell him she's lying. She's mad and he's clueless why.

He tries to talk to her but she ignores him, as she shuffles through her things saying she's late for an appointment; she can talk to him tomorrow. Her side bumps on the edge of her desk as she briskly steps around it. She winces and he's by her side the next second, one hand on her arm to keep her steady, but she pulls away instantly, as if burned. His skin tingles to the touch.

She insists she'll talk to him tomorrow and asks him to close the door on his way out.

This tomorrow never comes.

-

Morgan's been walking on eggshells around him, so is Garcia, itching to know what's going on, he can tell. He can see Prentiss throwing subtle glances his way too. Even the newest member notices there's something different with him and JJ.

That's just what he would love to know because it's been several days since he noticed JJ's changed her attitude towards him and he still doesn't know why.

Morgan's curiosity is taking the best of him, Reid can sense it, but every time the agent approaches his genius friend, he drastically changes gears and starts a conversation that is random at best.

Today he makes up the nerve to ask JJ if she wants to grab some lunch with him; he's barely finished his question and she's already saying she's got plans. She agreed to have lunch with Penelope, but he's welcome to come along. He's hurt for some reason and shakes his head; he doesn't want to pry in.

When she's back forty minutes later and he's still sitting at his desk –a second cup of coffee in hand- he notices the way she glances at him secretly. He knows then Morgan sent Garcia as a scapegoat. If he can't get anything off Reid, he knows Garcia has all the guts needed to pry everything off everyone.

He makes a mental note to stop by the tech room before Garcia leaves.

There's a sense of déjà vu as he knocks on her door and she looks up, giving him a smile; it still doesn't reach her eyes as it used to when directed at him, but this time there's a nervous expression to her face.

She welcomes him in and turns around as he walks in. She's fishing something in a cabinet file. He walks straight to her and in a moment of proclaimed boldness he pushes the drawer close barely missing her fingers inside and is rewarded with a surprised look.

"I didn't sleep with her." He says assertively, his hand still pressing against the metal drawer he just closed.

Her surprised expression ebbs into understanding as realization sinks in. "I shouldn't have told Penelope anything." She murmurs, her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes admiring the sight of her black boots.

"Because you'd rather just avoid me?"

"I never avoided you." She says with a sigh and she's right. Except it felt like that to him because there was so much more between them, as little as it was, and now it has faded into a common friendship he selfishly doesn't want.

He takes a step closer to her and suddenly wonders where all this attitude is coming from, because awkward Spencer Reid would never be as bold as she makes him feel. He swirls a strand of her blond hair around his index finger and marvels at how soft it feels.

"I'm not interested in her." There's a pointed tone in his sentence and he swears he can feel her heart speeding up a beat or two. Or maybe it's his heart.

"You seemed pretty chummy."

"We're friends."

"So are we." She looks him in the eye and decides it's time to pay back with as much boldness he's using on her. "And we don't act like that."

He smiles because she's so naïve right now. "People would say otherwise. In fact, I remember Morgan asking me if there was some meaning behind all the flirtation."

There's a bubbling giggle she suppresses before it can escape between her lips and the finger leaves her hair, his hand palming softly against her cheek. She leans in and he takes the hint as a cue he's allowed to kiss her.

-

His thumb gently rubs the fading green stain on her hip, courtesy of the encounter with the edge of her desk and she purrs into his neck.

The sheets have been kicked aside, her naked form lying nearly on top of him, her sweaty glimmering skin sticking to his, her lips drawing small, languid kisses on the flesh of his neck; his hands sliding up and down her exposed skin, studying, watching, memorizing her every reaction, every sound, every intake of breathe. His pulse is still thick and quick and his heart still fast enough to be heard miles away –the latter has less to do with the fact he's claimed the woman in his arms as his just a few minutes ago and more to her unclad skin touching every inch of his, the contentedness flooding every cell.

Her fingers curl around his side as she snuggles deep into him, his arms instinctively tightens around her, their legs entwined, her blond tresses sprawled on his pillow. His hand slips from her cheek, down to her neck and grazes the side of her breast as they're pressed against his chest and he feels her shuddering. Her scent has, for once, really followed him home and is now all over his bed. He smiles sluggishly.

There's only one thought that accompanies him to sleep.

Sometimes the impossible isn't impossible, after all.

-

The end.

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